A housing developer may fund changes to busy Nantwich road junctions in a bid to get the next stage of an estate approved.
David Wilson Homes is to apply to build the second phase of its new development on the old Stapeley Water Gardens site.
It will see another 150 homes built on the site, with still only one access route off the A51 London Road.
But such are the concerns over traffic and the impact on already busy roads around Stapeley and Nantwich, the developers admitted they may have to fund changes.
Andrew Taylor, planning director for David Wilson Homes, unveiled the idea to dozens of people who attended a Stapeley Parish Council meeting last night (March 6).
One key debate is the clogged up traffic between the London Road/Peter de Stapleigh Way lights and the Newcastle Road/Elwood Way junction.
Mr Taylor said they may lengthen the left-turn into Elwood Way from Newcastle Road, which they believe would allow more traffic to turn right out of Elwood Way into Newcastle Road and towards the A500.
Another possibility, he said, was to introduce high-tech “linking” technology so the traffic signals at the two busy junctions work in tandem, and can adjust timings by “sensing” where the queues are building up.
“The two junctions to work in harmony with each other, to give green signals when it needs to”, Mr Taylor’s highways consultant said.
“At the moment they don’t. They operate on their own. If approved, we could make contributions to new signals that would link the London Road and Newcastle Road traffic lights.”
That “link” may also stretch to include the Pear Tree Field traffic lights after residents voiced concerns over this junction.
Other residents and parish councillors raised fears over the impact of using just one access route into the new development.
One London road resident said: “Am I going to get out of my drive in the morning or is the traffic going to back up all the way south down London Road?”
Mr Taylor said it was the only viable access as land ownership issues prevented them from using the originally planned access off Peter de Stapleigh Way, opposite the Cronkinson Pub.
“There’s a ransom situation on that land at Peter de Stapleigh Way,” said Mr Taylor.
“We don’t own the land, and it would cost us a great deal to buy that which would mean we could not make contributions in other areas
“We’ve been asked to prove to the authority that London Road can cope with the extra cars and is safe and acceptable.
“We’re not hiding anything here. We have gone far beyond anything we have done on any similar development.”
Outline planning application for the second phase is to be submitted to Cheshire East Council before the end of March. A decision is expected in the summer.
The best way to resolve the issue of traffic congestion is to not allow any further development in Nantwich. How many houses on the new Stapeley development have they sold to date? How many houses are there for sale on the established Stapeley site, some of which have been on the market for many months? Make do with what we have and stop ruining a beautiful, quaint market town.
My understanding of the position is that the UK is in desperate need of more new housing, presumably amongst other things to house the floods of immigrants coming to this country. But if, as you point out, the houses are not selling, what is the point of building them? There is a lot of political claptrap about low-cost houses but my guess is that these low-cost dwellings probably represent no more than 5% of the total built. Developers are in the game to make loads of money not to solve social problems. So low-cost houses are not an attractive proposition for them.